Chicano Park was founded on April 22, 1970 when the community of Logan Heights and Chicano movement activists joined forces to protest the construction of a Highway Patrol station on the present site of the park. The Highway Patrol office was at the time the final insult to a community that had already been degraded by the demolition of hundreds of homes to make way for Interstate 5, the Coronado
Bridge, the placement of toxic industries and junkyards, lack of community facilities, proper schools, jobs, social or medical services. and others took over the site and faced police and bulldozers for days while negotiations took place that resulted in the land being given over for a community park. In the following days and months similar actions by the same groups led to the forming of a Chicano Free Clinic, now known as the Logan Heights Family Health Center, and the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park. The struggle for Chicano Park came to symbolize the Chicano Mexicano people's struggle for self-determination and self-empowerment. The murals in the park painted by Chicano artists such as Victor Ochoa, Mario Torero, Yolanda Lopez, José Montoya, Sal Barajas, Juanishi Orozco, Berenice Badillo, Carmen Linares and many others portray the social, political and cultural issues that form the struggle for the liberation of Chicano Mexicanos. Every year the community of Logan Heights, the greater community of San Diego and people throughout the Southwest and across the US come together to celebrate the takeover of Chicano Park. The all-volunteer Chicano Park Steering Committee, stewards of Chicano Park, plan and carried out the annual celebration.
